Redesigning Family Preservation

The new Family Preservation design

The primary objective of Family Preservation is to keep children safe at home with their families, and prevent removal, placement in out-of-home care (OOHC), and future contact with the child protection system. Family Preservation also aims to support children and families to achieve wider social benefits, including better educational attainment and improved health and wellbeing indicators.

The Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) is redesigning the Family Preservation service system in NSW to improve the outcomes, experience, suitability, and accessibility for families who want to access and would benefit from working with a Family Preservation service. For Aboriginal children, young people, and families this also means increasing culturally safe and responsive and community-led services that centre family-led decision making.

The redesign aims to make Family Preservation services more responsive to family needs, and more effective at supporting families to achieve outcomes. We have worked with the sector and other partners on the redesign as part of recommissioning, and in readiness for new contracts in April 2026.

In April 2024, DCJ released the Redesigning Family Preservation in NSW Discussion Paper (PDF, 1.5 MB) setting out its vision for reform and seeking feedback on elements of the new system design.

In December 2024, DCJ released the Finalising the Family Preservation foundational elements paper (PDF, 367.5 KB) summarising stakeholder feedback in response to the Discussion Paper and communicates DCJ’s final position on key elements of the design ahead of procurement activity in 2025. A recorded sector briefing on the paper was held on 5 February.

In March 2025, DCJ released the Family Preservation Program Specifications (draft) (PDF, 1.7 MB) which outlines the objectives, target groups, services to be delivered, and program outcomes for the redesigned Family Preservation Program. The specifications will continue to be developed until the new contracts with service providers start on 1 April 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) (PDF, 192.1 KB) have been developed to assist in understanding the future Family Preservation Program and further recommissioning activities. The FAQs will continue to be updated as recommissioning progresses.

Taking a codesign approach to the redesign

DCJ has worked with the sector on the redesign since mid-2022. We held stakeholder workshops with a range of practice and operational representatives from DCJ districts and ACCO and non-ACCO Family Preservation service providers, across NSW. The workshops generated discussion among stakeholders and elicited their reflections on the challenges and common problems with the current service system, examples of good practice, and ideas for system improvements. The extensive feedback was analysed by the Family and Community Services Insights, Analysis and Research (FACSIAR) team within DCJ, and published in a Family Preservation What We Heard paper (PDF, 4.0 MB).

We also partnered with AbSec to deliver ‘Listen and Learn’ workshops, held in person and on Country, with a range of Aboriginal stakeholders, non-Aboriginal ACCO staff, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal DCJ staff to better understand their experiences of Family Preservation in NSW. This feedback was analysed by AbSec with DCJ and published in the Aboriginal Family Preservation What We Heard paper (PDF, 2.6 MB).

The Redesigning Family Preservation in NSW Discussion Paper (PDF, 1.5 MB) sets out our vision for the future and proposes a number of changes. The Discussion Paper posed 40 questions and invited submissions from the sector. An online sector briefing was held on Thursday 11 April. If you would like to watch it again, you can do so here. A total of 66 submissions were received in response to the Paper.